Sadly, ruts are a part of practicing – I first noticed it when I was fourteen. My teacher explained to me, “You’re going to have ups and downs.” I won’t say that I was in a rut recently, but I felt that I was having trouble getting my practice sessions off the ground. I was looking for something new.
I decided to build my practices around transcriptions and lead sheets instead of just picking up the guitar and improvising, or doing scales and then reviewing material for gigs. This obviously isn’t ground breaking, but I think it’s more about the material. The idea is to play new music at a high technical level. For me, that involves a lot of bending, really good and well placed vibrato and some challenges for the right hand. Plus, there must be high quality, melodic ideas at work. Here are some of the pieces I’ve been working on. Please note that I got the Jazz Guitar Bible, which contains the amazing “Seven Come Eleven” out of the library. A library card is a must – you can get tons of great scores out of there!
“Mr. PC” – John Coltrane
This is a ‘head’ from John Coltrane’s great Giant Steps. Mr. PC is a blues tune in C minor and it goes really fast. The object is to play the eighth notes at over two hundred BPM. But instead of scales, you’re playing music. The phrasing is also a bit of a challenge. It’s not that hard to improvise over the changes, which I don’t generally practice. Playing rhythm in the hard bop style is a whole ‘nuther ball game. But I have a goal of getting up someday and jamming this tune at a jazz jam session. You would have to rip the head at blinding speed – worth preparing for! Great for right hand picking and coordination between the hands.
“Seven Comes Eleven” – Charlie Christian
More jazz, this time from a guitarist, the great Charlie Christian. The right hand picking is again a challenge on the head but this time it’s even more difficult from a musical perspective. How do you play the across the strings eighth notes with alternate picking and still make it smooth and swinging? Inside the string or out? Neither one is obviously better. This must be the eternal question for jazzbos but, they have obviously solved it by now, right?
The solo is another matter. Not that hard, very blues-based. Yet he is not exactly crawling along. And don’t they say that he was an early be-bopper? The arpeggio choices merit study. There is also a super cool sequence of chords before the solo that form a cycle of fifths with really neat voicing. Great kinda ‘inside out’ (again!) left hand finger moves with a pair of guide fingers/common fingers. Cool stuff!
“Keep Playing That Rock and Roll” – Rick Derringer
Keep Playing That Rock and Roll was played by Rick Derringer and features tons of big bends, fast pull-offs, tasty licks and a bunch of fast sixths for good measure. The song is an awesome listen, one of the hits off of Edgar Winter’s phenomenal White Trash album. What a band! Derringer could really put a well-constructed solo together in his day and it’s always fun to play along with Edgar Winter in the back-up band. Slick, lyrical, ballsy, speedy – when was the last time you heard all these qualities in a commercial radio guitar solo? Mostly major pentatonic licks.
“Have A Cigar” - Pink Floyd
I had meant for a long time to transcribe some of the solos from Wish You Were Here by Pink Floyd, one of my all-time favorite albums. When I finally got down to it, it was hard to decide which solo to do. I decided to transcribe “Have a Cigar” first (see first page transcription tab below). It’s a long solo in E minor, using only one position, the twelfth. In a sense it’s a bit like the solo to “Hey Joe.” Jimi was a major if not obvious influence on Gilmour. The phrasing is tremendous and Gilmour employs lots of big bends and a variety of different vibratos. There are sweet choices of notes plus ideas that are easy to grab and incorporate into something of your own. The feel and atmosphere are fantastic and the music is great to listen to. Really fun and a great work-out.
“Will My Man Be Home Tonight?” - Earl Hooker
This is my lesson and transcription of one of Earl Hooker’s most successful studio sessions and one of his best slide performances. He probably played the whole song in standard tuning but I do it in open D because I play in the tuning all the time. It works. I will probably do a standard tuning transcription in the future but in this arrangement, intonation and speed are given a major workout and test. It won’t be any easier in standard, trust me! He may play a few licks with his fingers but that’s a whole other ball game – you will have to be one slick mofo to pull that off. Can you hear them? It’s often hard to hear where Earl’s finger work takes over from his slide. There are some killer single string licks here that can work in any tuning and translate to any slide style. File under “Keeping the chops up.” -Christian Botta